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People & Population

The Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources is inviting applications for its Puget Sound Institute, a nine-day journey in July 2009 through parts of northwest Washington that will examine a variety of newsworthy topics.

"In the frozen far north, in Arctic Quebec, the Inuit have relied on the same nutritious foods culled from the oceans for centuries: beluga whale, fish, seal, and walrus. But some of these traditional foods have become so contaminated with brain-damaging mercury that the IQs of schoolchildren in remote Arctic villages are abnormally low."

"Turn on the faucet. Fill a glass with water. Drink it. Acts so commonplace you perform them without thinking twice. Flora Barraza cannot. Neither can José Garcia, nor the cooks at Los Pasteles Bakery No. 2, nor the elderly at the Epoca de Oro Adult Day Care. Along the Texas-Mexico border, nearly 90,000 people are believed to still live without running water. An untold number more — likely tens of thousands, but no one is sure — often have running water of such poor quality that they cannot know what poisons or diseases it might carry."

"The Harper government is trying to win support for its pipelines and resource agenda by pushing First Nations to sideline their aboriginal rights in exchange for business opportunities, documents reveal."

After a February 16, 2015, oil train derailment and explosion in West Virginia, new concerns have arisen over the public's right to know about the dangers oil trains pose to communities. Now trackside communities have some data and maps to help them protect themselves. Image: AP Photo/ Office of the Governor of West Virginia, Steven Wayne Rotsch.

"FLINT, Mich. -- In 1994, activists opposing the construction of a wood-fired power plant here asked U.S. EPA for help, arguing the project would spew toxic pollutants into their poor, largely African-American neighborhood."